The invention pertains to a loop-type reactor for mixing chemical substances and/or for bringing about a chemical reaction. More particularly the invention relates to loop-type wherein the reactants are in circulation about a guide tube arranged concentrically within the reactor. The circulation may be induced either by a propulsion jet or by a propeller or simply by the difference in density of the reactants.
Loop reactors of this type are not only in use for mixing and performing chemical reactions but also for the purification of exhaust gas and industrial sewage.
In a known loop reactor the reactants to be mixed are injected through a central nozzle as, for example, described in the German paper "Chemie Ing.-Techn. 43" Volume 1971, page 10, by Blenke, Bohner and Pfeiffer in an article entitled "Hydrodynamische Berechnungen von Schlaufenreaktoren fur Einphasensysteme" (=Hydrodynamic Calculations of loop reactors for One-Phase-Systems). The reactants flow through the guide tube and are deflected at its upper end by 180.degree.. A further deflection takes place at the lower end of the guide tube. The more powerful the injection is the more intensive will the circulation of the reactants be which may circulate around the tube various times. The completed mixture emerges from the reactor through openings in the reactor bottom adjacent the nozzle.
It is, however, a disadvantage of the known loop reactor that through the outlet not only such substances, as for example liquids, emerge that are optimally mixed after a number of circulations about the guide tube but also substances which have not yet completed a circulation, or have completed only one circulation, and are, therefore, not yet fully mixed.
It is, therefore, an object of the invention to provide a loop reactor from which the substances escape only after they have been mixed or processed optimally.